Free Falling
by toestastegood
Summary: When Faith Lehane was thirteen years old, one of her teachers told her that she'd never amount to anything – Who was Faith in the Wishverse?


Title: Free Falling  
Rating: PG-13  
Word Count: 1860  
A/N: Written for **tenyearsofbuffy**. Many thanks to **smartasschef14** for betaing. Set in the Wishverse.  
Summary: "When Faith Lehane was thirteen years old, one of her teachers told her that she'd never amount to anything" – Who was Faith in the Wishverse?

When Faith Lehane was thirteen years old, one of her teachers told her that she'd never amount to anything – that girls like her were doomed to fail.

It was in that precise moment that she resolved to prove that woman wrong. 

* * *

When Faith Lehane was fourteen years old, a different woman appeared on the doorstep of the run-down apartment she lived in.

Her mom was yelling at the TV in the background, her words slurred and heavy with alcohol, but Faith was almost immune to that by this point. She set her attention squarely on the woman in front of her, and tilted her chin up defiantly. "Yeah?"

"You're Faith?" the woman asked. Her accent was crisp and stank of England, of too much tea and a repressed sex drive. The sound of it made Faith tense up: it was the sound of authority.

It was the _look_ of authority too; a neat suit, tweed in abundance, greying brown hair tied back tightly into a carefully sculptured bun. Faith became over-aware of her own appearance, of the fact that her hair looked as if something had attacked it, and that she was wearing a too-big t-shirt and faded pyjama bottoms.

"Yeah. Who're you?"

The woman smiled, gentle lips and sharp teeth. "I'm the future, Faith." 

* * *

'The woman' was called Diane Hunter, and the whole time that Faith knew her she never saw her without her hair tied back, tight enough to look painful. Not even when she turned up on her Watcher's doorstep, nearly crying because her mother's latest boyfriend had hit her – again.

Not even when they faced their first real vampire together.

Vampires. Slayers. Faith didn't think that she was ever going to get her head around that. It was too much, wasn't it? Magic was the sort of thing that was supposed to happen in books, in films; to other people, in other worlds.

But Diane looked too severe to be crazy or lying, so when she said the world was in trouble, Faith believed her. 

* * *

When Faith was sixteen years old, Diane told her that 'the Master' had arose – she waffled on with a big long explanation, but Faith didn't listen to most of it. She just caught the main jist: big old guy, big bad guy, bad things are coming.

But bad things were always coming, so Faith didn't see what the problem was.

"Guess we're lucky I'm not the Slayer then, right?" she commented, only briefly taking her eyes off of the TV screen.

She didn't spot the way that Diane's face was torn with worry, or the way – for once – that her Watcher no longer seemed to have the essential optimism that had always shone through.

She didn't see that this was different: she didn't see that this might be the end. 

* * *

That same year, her Watcher died.

It was nothing much. Nothing dramatic. No fireworks and explosions, no self-sacrificing final act.

Just a park, just a vamp, just a bite.

Just, just, just.

She didn't have the supernatural strength of a real slayer, but she managed to dust the vampire easily enough while it was distracted with Diane.

No flowing praise followed from her Watcher. Just a choked gasp for breath, her usually serene eyes wide and frantic. Blood flowed freely from her neck, and as Faith knelt down beside her, her shaking fingers couldn't stop it.

Diane died in that park.

Faith thought a small part of her – an unessential part, she later decided – died there too.

Once the body was cold, she stood up and walked away. Blood on her hands, on her conscience, she didn't know where she was going. Somewhere else. Somewhere away.

She felt numb all the way to California. It was only when she collapsed into a bed in a L.A hotel room that the tears slipped down her face. 

* * *

When Faith was seventeen years old, she joined a gang.

It was different, though. They didn't wave guns around and shoot them at passers-by. They didn't start 'gang wars' for the sake of them. They were real people. They had a _mission_.

They shared it.

_Kill those sons of bitches._

Pretty simple, but Faith thought it worked. Gunn did too.

You slept during the day, you fought at night. It was a work ethic that Faith could adapt to – with no home, no mother, no Watcher, she didn't have the money to go out partying, she didn't have the support to go to school, she didn't have the knowledge to go out slaying.

So this would do. This warehouse. This gang. This family.

It would do. 

* * *

'There's only so much you can do against a damn tidal wave,' Gunn told her once. Faith had grinned, shrugged, told him not to be so sure. She carried her arrogance in front of her like a shield.

But the vampires kept growing and the gang kept dying and she wasn't sure what to do any more.

She didn't like death. Sure, no one _liked_ it, but this was different. Each body sent an ominous shiver crashing through her body, because these were more than just casualties. It wasn't just people dying on the front line any more. Civilians died nightly.

"What're we gonna do?" she asked Gunn a week after Alonna had been added to the death count.

With the grief coming off him in thick and fast waves, he shook his head. "I don't have a single idea any more."

The world kept closing in around them – Faith no longer knew how she was going to fight it. 

* * *

There was a seer in town. Gunn knew that, but wouldn't go near the guy: said he was a half-demon, said that freaked him out.

Faith had shrugged and said she'd go. Half-demon or not, a seer could be useful, right?

But when she arrived at the run-down apartment building, it wasn't really what she was expecting. It didn't have the supernatural glow that you'd think a seer's home would have. It was broken, it smelled damp and there were some suspicious-looking stains on the hallway's carpet.

Appearances can be deceptive, right? She had to hope so, because otherwise she was about to encounter another low-life runt – and she'd seen enough of them to last a lifetime or two.

Pursing her lips, she knocked heavily on the door. Immediately, she could hear the sound of shuffling in the apartment, and an Irish-tinged voice yelling that he was just coming. Faith really didn't have a good feeling about this.

Her limited optimism faded even more when the door finally opened, to reveal a short man with a spattering of stubble around his chin. His eyes were blood-shot and there was a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

Yeah, this was a waste of time.

"You're a seer?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

The man smiled. But it seemed sad, it seemed bitter. "Yeah, guess so. I'm Doyle." He leaned against the doorframe. "And you're the slayer, right? Faith?"

Faith frowned. "Not a slayer-"

"Yet."

"-but you got the name right." She just ignored him; seer or not, he had it wrong. She was seventeen, nearly eighteen. Diane once said that the current slayer had been just fifteen when she was called.

Faith was pretty sure that, by now, she was past her sell-by date. She was cool with that. Didn't want the world on her shoulders in any case.

"Sure I did – seer, remember. Had a vision of you guys this morning. Woulda come looking for you and all, but I reckoned you'd find me eventually." He took a step backwards from the door to let her in, green eyes watching her keenly. With her arms crossed over her chest, she took a step inside.

It smelled worse in here than out in the hallway, the scent of clothes that should have been washed weeks ago hinting her. "Nice place," she said, and she hoped that didn't sound sarcastic. It wasn't meant to.

"Yeah, I know." Doyle rolled his eyes and offered her a grin. If he wasn't a demon, she thought that she might be able to get to like him.

But he was a demon, and it was only Gunn's uncertain statement that they needed help that stopped her from pulling out her knife and gutting him. Her hands itch to do it; ridding the world of demons, one at a time.

They'll win eventually, won't they?

"You're gonna get called soon, princess," he stated with a world-weary sigh. "Saw it. Some English guy'll show up at that wee warehouse of yours, sweep you away. What's it you call them? Watchers. Stalkers. Somethin' like that. I dunno; I'm still getting used to this whole thing. Visions – more trouble than they're worth."

"I'll bet," Faith said, staring at him now. "When? Your vision, when's it going to happen?"

"Hell if I know. 'Soon', that's all they tell me – and you gotta be ready. This ain't gonna be some walk in the park. We got a Master to kill, a world order to restore. Things aren't supposed to be like this, y'see. Something went wrong, and the Powers aren't too happy about it. They want things sorted out. And, from what I'm getting, they want you and me to do it."

"I don't work with demons." She tried not to glare, but it was hard. This was a monster in front of her – a fast-talking, confused-looking sympathy-inducing monster.

He managed to mask any hurt he felt quickly, but she still couldn't help the stab of guilt that started in her gut.

"Good thing I'm only a half-demon then, right?" He smiled again, before just shrugging. "I dunno, princess. Wish to god or whatever that I did, but I'm just the messenger. And right now, the message is that you're It. It's down to you to drag this sorry-ass world back to the way it oughta be."

"The message is wrong."

"Messages aren't wrong. The interpretation, maybe, but the Powers know what they're doing. I think."

"You think?"

"Alright. I _hope_. I don't exactly speak to them direct."

"In other words, we're screwed?"

"Precisely." 

* * *

When Faith was eighteen, Doyle was right – to her disgust.

Three weeks after her eighteenth birthday, a bumbling man turned up outside the warehouse. Neatly pressed suit and a thin-wired set of glasses.

After the guy's had checked him out, had splashed holy water on his face to make sure he was clean, Gunn and Faith came out to see him like he'd asked. He'd introduced himself with a bashful smile, after mopping the water from his cheek with a white handkerchief. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Even the name was enough to set Faith on edge.

But then, standing in the middle of a ghost street, he'd smiled cautiously, puffed his chest out, and said the words that changed their lives forever: "Faith. You are the Slayer."

Three days later, she was on her way to Sunnydale.

She never reached her nineteenth birthday. Slayers rarely do.


End file.
